Interview with Dorothy Blevins Higinbothom

Interviewer: Doug Washburn = DW
Interviewee: Dorothy Higinbothom = DH
DW Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 17 January 2013, and I am with the Harford Living Treasure, Dorothy Blevins Higinbothom of Bel Air. How are you, m'am?
DH I'm well, thank you.
DW Good. Let's start with what year you were born.
DH I was born in 1932.
DW In Harford County?
DH No, I was born in Virginia, western Virginia, west of Roanoke, west of Virginia Polytechnic School, in a little rural town called Pearisburg, Virginia. We moved to Maryland in 1935.
DW Ok.
DH My dad had been in business in Virginia. He owned a feed store similar to what used to be the Southern States here in Maryland. It was destroyed by fire early in 1935. He had no insurance and had no means to support a big family. I, at that time, I was number six of seven children. More were born after we moved to Maryland. It was a struggle to try to find employment. He found out that there were jobs available in Maryland and he moved the family to Maryland in the summer of 1935. We lived in the Watervale area of Fallston. He had rented a two-story frame house that had no heat and no electricity.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH We lived there for a couple of years and then moved over to Old Jarrettsville Road on a very sharp curve just east of High Point Road. This was a unique house. I have memories of that house because it had a springhouse. Beside the house there was a small stream and there was a springhouse that was used for keeping foods cold—watermelon in the summer tasted mighty good after it had been cooling there! One of the things we had on the front porch which was typical back in those days was an ice chest. It was an oak box and it had brass hinges and a latch and it was a two-door system. One door you put in a block of ice and the other one you kept milk your food cold to preserve it. From there we moved to Plumtree Road and then to Coopstown.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH Then my parents built a home up closer to Forest Hill on Old Jarrettsville Road. My Dad was a master carpenter.
DW Oh.
DH He was not a farmer as you'd think of a typical farmer. He grew a large vegetable garden which was necessary for feeding a large family. He worked at several jobs in the county. One in particular that he had was back in the later '30s, early '40s, he was working at Edgewood Arsenal because the war in Europe was escalating—World War II was escalating. They were building facilities for soldiers and for the military personnel and my dad worked on a lot of the buildings there at Edgewood Arsenal. Many of them are still in use today.
DW Oh.
DH He also worked for Mr. Roy Bryson who had the contract working at the racetrack, Bel Air Racetrack. They built the horse barns, repaired the fences, whatever was necessary to keep the racetrack in good shape and up and running for the race meets.
DW Wow.
DH He was not a gambler, but one day, he and two or three other workers decided to put in fifty cents each to bet on a horse. It was a longshot.
DW [Laughs]
DH The longshot came in. It paid quite a bit of money. I think his share of the money was seven dollars and change. That bothered him so much, he could not wait for Sunday to come to go to church and put it in the collection plate. [Laughter] He was a very honest, straightforward man.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH If he told you something, you could depend on it. My mother never worked outside of the home. She was a wonderful housekeeper and mother. She kept a spotlessly clean house. She did a lot of canning and preserving of foods which was necessary to feed the family. Our job, as the girls, our job was to prepare the jars for sterilizing. We had to wash them and scrub them. We had to help in every way. Living in the country, we had to help with the household chores, the garden chores; we had to pull the weeds in the vegetable garden, hoe the weeds in the cornfields; feed the livestock. We had to make our own fun, we had to have our own entertainment because mother didn't drive and in those days they didn't have organized sports like they do today. Mother was also an expert seamstress. She made a lot of our clothing, even the boys. She would make their shirts and their knickers.
DW Right. Where did you get the ice to put in the icebox?
DH There was an iceman that came by periodically and then they bought— twenty-five cents for a chunk of ice to put in the icebox.
DW How long would that last?
DH In the summertime, it would not last very long at all. Maybe two, three days, max. Because the interior of the box was some sort of tin or that retained the cold for a while. But I think it was every three days that the man came.
DW Ok.
DH Another thing—we had a fish man. He used to go fishing down at Havre de Grace and he would come through every so often with his little black open bed small pickup truck filled with ice and fish that he had caught. So every now and then we would have baked fish for dinner.
DW [Chuckles] Where did you go to school?
DH I started to school in 1938 at Emmorton Elementary School which was a two-room school. Mrs. Reatha McComas taught the first through the third grades and Mrs. Clara Streett taught the fourth through the seventh grades.
DW Is that a Street with two t's or one?
DH Two T's.
DW Ok. That's very common in the county.
DH Yes, yes.
DW [Chuckles]
DH We walked to school. We lived on Plumtree Road and it was a mile from our house to the school. The only time we missed school was when we had the whooping cough and one time there was a tremendous ice storm and everything was covered with ice, even the weeds in the fields were bent down with ice. My father walked to school with us and we sat on the front steps of the school waiting but the teachers never showed up. So we waited about an hour and walked home because in those days there was no communication like we have today about school closings. There was nothing about snow or ice closures because the snow emergency plan didn't go into effect in Harford County until, I think, 1961. I attended that school into the fourth grade. Then we moved to Churchville area and I attended the Churchville Elementary School, the remainder of the fourth grade and graduated seventh grade.
DW That's the building that's still standing?
DH Yes. Part of the old structure is still visible from the back, from the play yard of the school. You can't tell it so much from the front. Mr. Thomas Hackett was the Principal. My parents had a farm there, midway between Churchville and a little community called Level. Then they bought a farm at Coopstown and then I went to Bel Air High School for one year and after that transferred to Jarrettsville High School.
DW Hmmm.
DH In those days, the school system only had eleven years requirement. I was in the 1949 graduating class from Jarrettsville. That was the last official graduating class under the eleven year system of education. In 1950, there was a small graduation for those who did not complete their eleven years for some various reasons.
DW That was optional then wasn't it? Eight through eleven was actually optional at that time or was it mandatory?
DH I don't know if it was optional or not but I thought it was required for graduation, eleven years was required in order to get the certificate for graduation.
DW They actually gave you a certificate for the seventh grade didn't they?
DH I also have the certificate from the seventh grade.
DW It was a pretty rigorous test for the seventh grade.
DH Yes, yes. Mr. C. Milton Wright was the head of the Board of Education.
DW Right.
DH It's interesting that of the schools that I attended, Emmorton School is still standing but no longer—I do not recall when they stopped having classes there, but they built a brand new school and, of course, things do change over the years. Churchville is still an elementary school but it only goes to the fifth grade. Then Jarrettsville was elementary through high school and it is now just an elementary school.
DW Hmm. I think there's only one corner of the original school that's still intact.
DH Yes. Yes, that's right.
DW That's the only thing that survived of the brick. Actually, the school you went to was the fifth school in Jarrettsville—two logs, two frame and now the second brick is there.
DH Mmm hmm.
DW You talked about your dad taking care of the buildings at the Bel Air racetrack, that was also like the place the school kids went for fairs and things like that, wasn't it?
DH Yes, it was. They used to have the county fair. In fact, I won ribbons there for some of my sewing ability, some of my—my mother as I mentioned before was an expert seamstress and she taught me sew at a very early age and I won prizes for some of my sundresses and aprons and things that I had made, way back then. [Chuckles]
DW [Chuckles] I'm going to pause here and do a quick check of equipment.
DH Am I doing ok?
DW Oh, you're doing wonderful! [Laughter] I love it when I don't get "yes" or "no". [Laughter]
DH Ok, all right. I can say, I get a little long winded so you'll have to move along.
DW No, no, no, you're doing fine. Ok, so, Bel Air Racetrack—were there races there all year long?
DH No, it was a summer meet. It was a half mile race track and they just had a summer meet but they had the races every year.
DW Only lasted a couple weeks or something?
DH Yes, that's correct.
DW Ok. Looks like you were active in St. Margaret's? on Hickory [Avenue]?
DH Yes. My husband was a member of St. Margaret's Church. We were married in the little historic white church in 1953. Our children were baptized there at that church.
DW Know any history of the church?
DH I'm sorry?
DW Any of the history of the church?
DH The history of the church—we celebrated the 100th anniversary in 2005. The Higinbothom family moved into Bel Air in 1920 and there have been Higinbothoms in St. Margaret's parish since 1920. My husband served on many committees in the church. I served on the planning the historical ceremony for the church. Three of my four children went to school there. I was very active in school activities and served as president of the Mother's Club which was the forerunner of the PTA. I helped with some of the grades, some of the teachers' assistant with some projects that they were working on. I worked with the Patriot Program, the fifth graders. There are probably other things that don't come to mind right off hand.
DW Did St. Margaret's come from St. Ignatius which would have been much older? Was that like a "spin-off"?
DH No, St. Ignatius was the oldest Catholic church between Baltimore and Philadelphia. I'm not sure how St. Margaret's got started but I think it was Father Frederick. Your original school for St Margaret's was, I believe, located in a house on Pennsylvania Avenue.
DW I had heard it was on the corner where the Parking Garage is.
DH Yes and I'm not sure of the exact location but then they built the school over on Hickory Avenue which was a very small school and then they added onto it and eventually built the larger building and both buildings are used for classes. The older building as well as the newer building and they now have a building for pre-K and Kindergarten which did not exist when I was in school. They had no pre-Ks or Kindergarten.
DW Do you know what the attendance is there, school attendance?
DH It has fluctuated over the years and I'm not sure what it would be now.
DW Ok. Well, you mentioned your husband. How did you meet him?
DH I was working, employed at The Aegis newspaper. My boss, Mr. John D. Worthington, Sr., introduced us. I was a bookkeeper at The Aegis and a proofreader and The Aegis came out on Thursday—weekly paper, on Thursday.
DW [Chuckles]
DH My husband came on Thursday after lunch to buy a newspaper before he went back to his law office and my boss introduced us. But it was not a "love at first sight". He had to work at it. [Laughter] But I could sit at my desk at The Aegis office which at that time was located on Courtland Street and Wall Street had not yet been demolished for the addition of the courthouse and I could look right straight from office window to the door to his law office. I could see when he was coming and going. [Laughter]
DW Worthington was, I guess, owner and chief editor…
DH He's the owner, owner and editor of the newspaper. In fact, where I live today is called Homestead Village and he lived in the big, stone house up behind the Bel Air Methodist Church and all of this property came from his farmland, from his farm.
DW That building later would have been Courtland Hardware, right?
DH No.
DW No? It's not on that corner?
DH No, it's not on that corner. It was between Bond Street and Main Street.
DW Oh. Ok, well I always had that wrong in my mind. [Laughter]
DH Well, Courtland Hardware was up on the corner of Main and Courtland which now, I think, is a brick building that houses a lot of the Department of Social Services offices.
DW Where did you say The Aegis was?
DH Courtland Street.
DW Courtland and…
DH Between—closer to Bond Street than Main Street.
DW Oh, ok. Holden Building was in the middle…
DH It was next door. It was very close to the Holden Building.
DW Ok. Ok, no wonder you had such a good view of the Courthouse. [Laughter]
DH I did. I really did.
DW Let's talk a little bit about your husband's career because he was certainly a well-known name in the county.
DH Yes.
DW How many years did he practice law before he became a judge?
DH Oh, my goodness, I would have to do the math! He was already a lawyer when I met him and that was in 1950. I think he had been practicing for three or four years. He went on the bench in 1974, and during his tenure as judge, he was chairperson of the courthouse construction, the building the new courthouse.
DW Do you remember any interesting cases that he ever had or was involved in? Either as a lawyer or as a judge?
DH There are probably very many but one that comes to mind. He was not judge at this particular time. He was practicing law. The H. Rapp Brown case, who was the militant whose case had been transferred from Eastern Shore to Harford County and Judge Harry E. Dyer was presiding over that case when these people were on the way to the courthouse to blow up the courthouse and to set H. Rapp Brown free. The bomb went off prematurely and exploded on Route 1 near Tollgate Road.
DW Right.
DH Took out what was called the Toll House at that time and I was trying to think of some of the cases that might be of interest. Maybe we'll move along and something will come to me in a minute or so.
DW Ok, that's fine. One of the other things that I saw on the write-up that was given to me was your memory of a John Wilkes Booth play at the Bel Air Courthouse?
DH Yes, yes.
DW What year was that?
DH I don't recall the year but we did put on a play at the courthouse and I got down on my hands and knees and looked at the big oval table that is in the courtroom and it has a date on it of 1791, so it is…the courthouse had burned years and years before and it was rebuilt and this table was salvaged from the first burning as I understand it. But, yes, we did do a play about John Wilkes Boothe.
DW And that was high school?
DH No, it was not. It was, if I recall, we did it as a fundraiser for the Inner Wheel, the ladies of the Rotary Club. We supported local charities and functions and we put on the play, sponsored it.
DW Oh, ok. When I read that I wasn't clear as to what organization-------------when that happened. I did see that you were active in the Inner Wheel, so the Rotary was for the males—
DH At that time, yes.
DW And the Inner Wheel was the—
DH The ladies of the men in Rotary, yes. It was a way of supporting our husbands in their, in any way that we could. It was a way of meeting other Rotarians' wives. It was a great social thing, as well locally, as I said before, we did support some charities.
DW When I looked information up, I see that it's called the International Inner Wheel now.
DH Yes, It is, yes.
DW More than one country.
DH It is no longer the ladies of Inner Wheel because of the ladies in the Rotary Club now. It's not all men. It's men and women and the Rotary Club in Bel Air is very active. It always has been.
DW Since you lived around so many different places in the county during your life here, you must have had a chance to get on and off the Ma and Pa a time or two.
DH Not really.
DW No!?
DH No. I do not ever recall riding the Ma & Pa train. A lot of people rode it into Baltimore to school and back again and rode it back and forth every day. We did not have that opportunity. I've seen it many times. And I've waited for it to cross North Main Street many times. I remember the Station House there in Bel Air.
DW It would have been right around where Corbin Fuel is today.
DH Partially. It crossed North Main Street out near The Mill.
DW Right. The Mill's on one side and Corbin Fuel's on the other, I believe.
DH I've walked the trail, the walking trail. I have walked that several times.
DW Ok. You've also helped get the Heart Association going, an organization in Harford County
DH This was many, many years ago. Dorothy Ward who was a schoolteacher and I had been, she had approached me about helping to get a Heart Association started in Harford County. What we did was not fundraising. If a doctor had a patient who was having a heart problem, Dorothy and I would go to that home and do an EKG, check the vitas and report back to the doctors. So from that, eventually a Heart Association did form in Harford County, but I don't know if we would be the instigators or not. We had several patients that we would go out into the rural areas to check up. It would save the doctor a trip and save the family from having to bring the patient into the doctor's office.
DW Hmm. And did you have nurse's training?
DH No, I never wanted to be a nurse but I have spent most of my adult life being a caregiver. I have worked as a volunteer for the Harford County Health Department. I worked with the flu shots, so if you ever got flu shot through the Harford County Health Department at one of their locations, I was probably there. They have changed their system. They no longer have the different locations like they used to. But, no, I'm not a nurse but I have learned a lot through experience—first of all, having four children and taking care of family members who had been in need of help and assistance. I also took care of my next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Seifert. I took care of him until he passed away. He had a short hospital visit before he passed away and then I took care of Mrs. Seifert until she could no longer live next door and she was placed in a nursing facility. Caregiving is something that takes a lot of patience and time. I never thought I could handle it but having four children and being on my own as far as taking care of them, I learned quite a bit. I still don't want to be a nurse. [Laughter]
DW So when you were a child where did your family do their shopping?
DH We lived out in the country and we came to Bel Air about once a month to buy supplies that we could not grow on the farm such flour, and whatever feed for the livestock we had to buy and groceries. There was an American Store, grocery store, on Main Street, North Main Street— I'm using Pennsylvania Avenue as the cut off between south and north and this was north of Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the right hand side of the road and I think later it became Beshore's Appliance Store.
DW Also sold musical instruments.
DH Yes and all kinds of stuff. [Laughter] All kinds of appliances.
DW That's great. I knew somebody that worked in that store and I've been trying to remember the name of that store for six months.
DH Beshore's. The children would sit in the car while mother and dad did the shopping and after they got the groceries or whatever they needed to buy, if somebody need shoes, then we'd get the shoes and then we would go to the movies, the movie theater. But that was just a once a month trip and we had to really earn the rite to go to the movies. We had to toe the mark. [Laughter] My father was a strict disciplinarian. [Laughter]
DW So that would have been the Argonne on Main Street?
DH Yes. I remember a lot of the stores on Main Street. At Pennsylvania Avenue there was Richardson's Drugstore.
DW Good sodas.
DH And the movie theater and Getz's had a gift shop which later Payson Getz owned and operated. I think it was his uncle and his dad who started the store. I'm not really one hundred per cent sure about that. Dean and Foster had a place which sold furniture and also he was the undertaker. He later gave up the furniture store and then built the funeral home out on West Broadway. There was a Bata Shoe Store, Hub which was a clothing store, Main Street Market, The Vaughn Hotel. Across the way on the corner of Main and Office Street, Clarks Stationery Store—this was a little bit later.
DW I remember that.
DH Getz's Haberdashery, the Getz's men's store sold men's clothing. His three sons were all three lawyers—Morton, Stanley and Allen. The National Store which was a ladies clothing store, then in '50s Charles Lutz built the building there, it's still called the Lutz Building and he sold appliances.
DW The Vaughn Hotel would have—most people would remember that later as Preston's.
DH Yes, Preston's was in the corner of Vaughn—and there was a bowling alley underneath there at one time.
DW Right, and the pool hall.
DH And the pool hall, yes, of course, all of that was destroyed in the fire of 1972. We could see the smoke from my kitchen window from that fire.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH It destroyed quite a bit. It went from the Vaughn Hotel down to Boyd & Fulford. It stopped at Boyd & Fulford because of the firewall. There had been a firewall. Boyd & Fulford has been there for I don't know when it was started but I do recall Doc Maisenhalder who was the owner and proprietor and in the '50s and '60s, it was quite a tradition in my family that after Sunday Mass my husband took the children to Boyd & Fulford's drugstore, set them up at the counter, and treated them all to a cherry coke. And he had a regular coke and Dr. Maisenhalder would give the children bubblegum. And my children today, grown adults, still remember going into Boyd & Fulford's for that Sunday treat. Then, of course, Gene [Eugene] Streett started there after he finished pharmacy school and Gene is now the owner and proprietor. There are a lot more buildings but right now those are the ones that come to mind and I have vivid memories about.
DW That's great. There was two or three names in there that I—Clark's, I had been in numerous times but I couldn't have told you the name of the store.
DH It was Clark's Stationery but I don't recall what was on that corner before he moved in because he was there in the early '50s and I don't recall when he opened the business there. But I do recall two banks, we had the Commercial & Savings Bank which was recently torn down. Mr. Cornelius Cronin was the president of the bank and on Office Street, the First National Bank and if I'm not mistaken, I think a Mr. ------------- Kisen was the president of that bank.
DW K-I-S-E-N?
DH It's funny spelling. [According to Ancestry.com there are various spellings of this name– Munnichuysen, Munnichaysen, Munnikhuysen]
DW OK. I remember the First National there.
DH As far as other stores, I recall my dad telling me that he met Mr. Maurice Klein when they lived in Fallston. He is the father of Ralph Klein. He had a general store in the Fallston area that sold horse harnesses, all sorts of pot-bellied stoves, and parts and just a general country store for items that were needed back then. He later moved to the corner in Forest Hill at the intersection of, [Jarrettsville Rd and Rock Spring Rd] there's a traffic signal now, and opened up a general store there. When the grocery store strike came along, when all the big chains went on strike which was, I believe, in the '60s but I'm not one hundred per cent sure on the date, they started selling groceries and from that little store in Forest Hill they have branched out to become Klein's ShopRite and I think they have eight or nine stores throughout the county and local area.
DW Big expansion.
DH Yes.
DW You were also active with the Department of Aging and made trips to Annapolis to work with the Legislature?
DH Yes, yes we did. I really enjoyed the work with the Department of Aging because I felt like that I was an advocate for the senior citizens who had no one to speak out for them. One day, one incident that I particularly remember, we were going to Annapolis to let the legislators know about the high cost of prescription drugs and the health care situation for the senior citizens. We all took a small medicine bottle with three or four pennies in it, and when we began our sessions, we shook these pennies to get the attention of the legislators and they sat up, they took notice, and they listened. But we had periodic sessions where we would meet with the legislators to inform them of the issues that were facing senior citizens. I thought that was very productive. Unfortunately, I don't recall every activity that we did but those were some of the highlights.
DW Mmm hmm. That's fine. Let's go back to the beginning a little bit.
DH Before you do that, may I also tell you that I worked as a volunteer? I was on the Department of Social Services. I was on their Advisory Board for seven years. That was quite interesting. One of the major functions of the Advisory Board was to approve the budget for the agency, quite a big responsibility. We got involved in the homeless. We as Board Members, we would take turns going to one of the homeless shelters and cooking a meal for the homeless. We did that a few times. But I enjoyed my work with the Department of Social Services. Quite intense. A lot of it confidential.
DW I have a family member that I take care of business and he's involved with that so I have interfaced with them, has Social Services changed a lot over the years?
DH I think it has. I've been out of it now for several years and of course, things do change and they change rather rapidly sometimes. I know that as I went off the Board, they were starting a system, a computer system where they could track their clients anywhere in the country. They had a database that they were working with. That's way out of my realm of expertise. [Laughter]
DW To kind of go back to the beginning of all this, why do you think your dad was successful in finding work in Harford County but not in Virginia. His carpentry skills should have been useful any place.
DH I don't believe at that time that he really had the carpentry skills. His brother, my uncle, had come to Maryland looking for work. Of course, all of this is after the Depression and things were slow to recover or to even get started, and my uncle came to Maryland and worked on the bridge across Conowingo Dam. [After the interview I realized that I was incorrect about where my uncle worked. He did not work on the dam and I do not know where he found employment.] He went back home to Virginia to move his family to Maryland because he told my dad there were jobs available up here.
DW Hmm.
DH So I'm not sure what he did—I was only three when we first came to Maryland—I'm not sure what he did, what his abilities were, but over the years he became a master carpenter. In fact, he worked for one of the builders here in Homestead Village before he retired. In fact, he worked on my house.
DW Oh!
DH So I really don't have any idea what he did prior to that because he had the feed store and chicken farm. When that was destroyed it left him without anything.
DW Your uncle must have been here pretty early because I think Conowingo was built between '27 and '29.
DH Mmm hmm. Well, he had come up and he worked the last stages of Conowingo.
DW Well, how about we talk a little bit about changes you've seen in the county from the'30s, '40s, and '50s to the 2000s? How about changes for the better?
DH We have a better library system. We have a lot more shopping opportunities. We have a lot more malls. Malls were non-existent back in the '30s and '40s and early '50s. The road system—that's where I can see a big change is in the road system because there used to be so many unpaved roads in the county and now a lot of them are paved—the super highways—the change on [Rt.] 24, the building of the new 24 and changing the name of the old 24 to 924; how it opened up the land for building. The housing developments are numerous throughout the entire county. My husband used to practice real estate law and on Sundays after dinner, he would put us in the car and we would go out driving around Harford County looking at the property that he had a settlement on. I recall one time going to the upper end of the county that we went off the main road, we went into a gravel road, a dirt road and then we went to—it was just a path. That road is all paved now but I cannot tell you the name of the road because in those days many of the roads didn't have names!
DW Right.
DH The schools; The number of schools in the county; The expansion of the schools; Building Harford Community College.
DW Do you remember when US 40 and then I-95 were put in?
DH I remember 95 but I don't recall too much about 40 because 40 was here long before 95. In the beginning when 95 opened, the traffic on 40 was nil and then it wasn't long until it started building up again. I think that's about all I can recall at the moment.
DW Ok.
DH I'll probably think of 110 things after this is over that I should have said.
DW That's very, very normal. Don't worry about that at all.
DH One of the places that we particularly enjoyed going to was the Rocks.
DW Hmm.
DH My husband's brother and family lived in Baltimore City and they had three children and they would come up in the summertime and I would take them up to the Rocks, my children and his sister-in-law and nieces and nephew. We would picnic and play in the body of water and walk up to the King and Queen Seat. That was one of the good places that they enjoyed visiting. Another thing, they all learned to ice skate over here on Bynum Park by the pond at Bynum park.
DW Yes.
DH They all learned to ice skate over there. [Laughter]
DW Did you actually go in Deer Creek or did you go in the 4-H swimming hole?
DG Deer Creek; Deer Creek, right along Rocks Road. Right along Rocks Road and they had their favorite stones. They had one that looked like Flipper. [Laughter] But it was fun times and now another thing that I particularly enjoy is the Promenade at Havre de Grace.
DW Hmm.
DH I love to go down there and walk. I go down early in the morning and walk and enjoy that tremendously.
DW It was nice that they replaced it after it was damaged.
DH Right and another thing that is good about the county is all of the organized sports for the children. In the late '50s early '60s, the only sport available was for the boys and that was baseball and then the Pop Warner Football League started and then soccer started and from there it has branched out.
DW Yea.
DH And the kids learned early that if they wanted to play sports when they got in school and high school, in particular, they had to start when they were young.
DW Right.
DH Churches. We went to whatever church was in our neighborhood. So I have been to just about every church and denomination in Harford County. [Laughter]
DW That was also very common, too.
DH Yes. Yes, yes. Mountain Christian Church. That's the first church I recall attending and we went to church in that stone church that is right on the road. Now there is a huge church campus.
DW Yes.
DH Huge church campus. A very active church.
DW The time that you lived at Emmorton, when I look at the old maps of that area, it was, of course, now it is considered a suburb of Bel Air, but back then it was certainly a whole community unto itself.
DH And it was very small. The community of Emmorton was centered near that church, near the Emmorton Elementary School.
DW Right.
DH There are a few houses still standing that were there along Old Emmorton Road and, I do recall there was a stone house that we used to—sometimes, if we had a few pennies in our pocket that we would stop there and there was an old maid that ran a store there. We were scared to go there because it was so dark but if we had a couple of pennies, we would go in and buy penny candy to munch on on our way home. But the road, of course, changed when they put in 924.
DW Correct. But I was surprised. If you look at some of the oldest maps, they had their own post office and general store and blacksmiths and that kind of thing. The other thing that surprised me was Old Emmorton Road actually, even before the new 924 was put in was actually Old Emmorton Road like in the late '30s early '40s.
DH Right, mmm hmm. Mmm hmmm.
DW So, I found that surprising when I looked at the maps—
DH Mmm hmm.
DW Of the area. It wasn't strictly when 924 went in; it was much earlier than that.
DH Mmm hmm.
DW We've been going almost an hour.
DH Have we?
DW Yes. [Chuckles] So is there anything else that you would like to talk about?
DH Not that I can think of at the moment. Harford County has been a great place to live. It was a wonderful place to raise my children. It was a great place to for my husband's law practice. Three of my four children still live in Harford County and work in Harford County. One works for the Upper Chesapeake Health System; one has his own business, Decisive Data Services which is computer services for large businesses and, my older son is with the Dixie Construction Company.
DW Hmm.
DH My daughter is a retired school teacher and she is now living Hancock, MD. I've enjoyed volunteering. I just wish I could do a lot more volunteer work but maybe that will come later. Do you have any other questions for me?
DW You started off with some great information about how the family life was at the beginning so you covered a lot of the stuff that I would normally have ask you about. It was very good.
DH There were all together eleven children.
DW Wow.
DH Two died in infancy—one was two years old and the other was just a few weeks old. They died within a few days of each other. They had spinal meningitis. I had an older brother who, during World War II, his ship was bombed and he was lost on ship during World War II. The rest of us reached adulthood. I marvel now at how my parents were able to raise such a big family. We always had plenty of food to eat. We had clothing, much of it was hand-me-downs or handmade. As I mentioned before, mother was an expert seamstress and when we would have to buy flour or feed, she would tell my father to look for certain flour and feed sacks because she knew that if she four alike, she could make a dress. If she had one, she could make an apron. If she had two, she could make a dress for one of the girls. So we wore flour and feed sack clothing but it was beautiful, it was homemade, it was new and it was always clean. My granddaughter asked me one time, "Grand mom, what modern invention means the most to you?" and without hesitation I said, "Washer and Dryer."
DW [Chuckles]
DH Because the way we had to do laundry was very rugged and rough and wore the skin off your bony little fingers. I remember when my mom got her first Maytag Washer. It was electric and it had a wringer. That washing machine is still around today. It was Maytag. My brother took the wringer off, he still has it and sometimes when he entertains he puts ice in it and puts his soda and beer in there. He says it sure does keep it cold. [Laughter]
DW Well, that's nice that things from your parents have survived.
DH Yes. Yes, yes.
DW Too much of the stuff gets thrown away today.
DH Yes, that's true. That's true. I remember the shoe last that was this iron thing that looked like the bottom of a shoe turned upside down. Daddy would put the shoes on this last and would put on a new heel if it needed it or a half sole if it needed it. Somebody in the family could wear the shoe. But we all grew up to be useful human beings.
DW I will say thank you very much. I've enjoyed my time with you.
[Additional Notes – Original Interview 17 January 2013]
It has been an honor and a privilege to remember life and times of years gone by in Harford County as seen through my eyes and experience. I appreciate this special honor of being proclaimed a Harford County Living Treasure.
I want to give additional information to some of the questions I was asked during the interview.
You asked about my husband, Edward D. Higinbothom and, in particular, about his career as a lawyer as well as memorable cases he presided over as Judge. In addition to what I have already mentioned, he was very well known and highly respected in the county and state. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945. After discharge he attended law school at night. During the day he worked for Mr. John A. Robinson at the Bel Air Times newspaper. He began his practice about 1948. The mainstay of his law practice was Real Estate, Deeds, Wills, Mortgages, Estate work and preparing tax returns. He represented some financial institutions and was active in the Harford County and State Bar Associations. In 1974, he was sworn in as a Harford County Circuit Court Judge. During his tenure on the bench, he heard a variety of cases ranging from domestic to civil to criminal. He enjoyed a reputation for being a gentle man, intelligent, understanding, considerate and fair. After retirement in 1984, he continued to work as a Judge by special assignment. These assignments were in Howard, Frederick, Baltimore Counties and Baltimore City. He was honored to sit for one case on the Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis. He heard many interesting cases but there are two that stand out in my mind. One of particular interest was a jury case involving a labor union dispute. The first day of trial he arrived at the courthouse with a very uneasy feeling about the safety of the people and possible tension involved in this case. Acting on that strong feeling, he asked his court bailiff and the Deputy Sheriff (one was always on duty in the court room) to search everyone who entered the room. He was not surprised to find that guns were found and confiscated. Another time, he had a case of teen age girls fighting. In the court room during the hearing their mothers were very hostile and disrespectful. When the case was over, he again experienced that feeling of unease. He requested his bailiff (a former federal marshal) to escort the ladies safely from the courthouse. In the stair well one of the women suddenly pulled out a knife and was approaching the other women. The bailiff noticed and quickly subdued her and removed the knife from her hand before any harm could be done. It was cases like these that eventually led to the courthouse security system.
More stores I remember during the 40's and 50's. On Main Street: The National Store – Ladies clothing and accessories Walkers – A clothing and variety store owned by Mr. Kaplan The Kiddie Shop – Baby and Children's clothing. Other buildings that I recall are the sheriff's home on Main Street with the jail in the back of the dwelling and Dr. Palmer's home and office on the south corner of Main and Churchville Road. There were many more stores and buildings that are memorable such as Motor Sales on Bond Street, now the location of Courtland Hardware. Miss Jo Moore's boarding house on North Main Street and Jackson's Radio and Television Store on the corner of Main and Lee Streets, owned by Mr. Ores Jackson. The courthouse located on Main Street between Office and Courtland Streets did not extend all the way to Bond Street as it does today. Wall Street stretched between the back of the courthouse and the Regal Hotel. The county liquor dispensary, the only place one could purchase alcohol, was located on the corner of Courtland and Wall Streets. Dr. Main E. Little, a dentist, had an office on Wall Street as did a lawyer and an insurance company. All of this changed when it was necessary to enlarge the courthouse. Wall Street was closed and buildings were torn down to construct a much needed addition. Upon completion the courthouse would extend from Main Street to Bond Street. Many changes took place in Bel Air after the one way north on Main Street and the one way south on Bond Street was implemented. The opening of the Harford Mall had a huge impact on businesses. Some closed or moved to other locations. The Mall had a theatre and soon the one on Main Street closed.
During the interview I was asked about the history of St. Margaret Church. I do not think it was a spin-off from St. Ignatius Church. In retrospect, I offer the following information. In 1900 Fr. Alphonse Frederick purchased three acres of land in Bel Air with money he inherited from his mother. Most of the work on the corner stone and the construction of the church was done by volunteers. The church was named in honor of Fr. Frederick's mother whose patron saint was St. Margaret. The first Mass was celebrated in October, 1905. In April 1911, the Sisters of Notre Dame came to Bel Air to establish a school. Classes were held in a building donated by Octavius Norris. It was the first Catholic School in Harford County. Enrollment increased over the years and the school now educates pre-school, kindergarten, first to fifth grades as well as middle school students. Because of increased population and membership in 1969, a new church was dedicated and the original church was remodeled to serve as a library and an adult education center. In 1995 ground was broken to build a mission outside of Bel Air on Churchville Road. It was given the name St. Mary Magdalen and was dedicated in 1997. Sometime later, the middle school was built to educate the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. In 2005 St. Margaret Church celebrated its 100th anniversary.
I was asked about the John Wilkes Booth play. The play took place in November 1975 in the ceremonial courtroom at the courthouse in Bel Air. It was a bi-centennial fundraising event planned and sponsored by the Inner Wheel of Bel Air Rotary Club. The play was titled "Booth in Bel Air" and was performed by students from the John Carroll High School. The program cover was a reproduced replica of a playbill used when Booth played Brutus in 1873. I was chairperson with Mrs. Eugene Streett acting as co-chair and we were assisted by Mrs. Ralph Morgan. The proceeds from the play were used to restore the portraits that hang in the courthouse.

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Interviewer: Doug Washburn = DW
Interviewee: Dorothy Higinbothom = DH
DW Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 17 January 2013, and I am with the Harford Living Treasure, Dorothy Blevins Higinbothom of Bel Air. How are you, m'am?
DH I'm well, thank you.
DW Good. Let's start with what year you were born.
DH I was born in 1932.
DW In Harford County?
DH No, I was born in Virginia, western Virginia, west of Roanoke, west of Virginia Polytechnic School, in a little rural town called Pearisburg, Virginia. We moved to Maryland in 1935.
DW Ok.
DH My dad had been in business in Virginia. He owned a feed store similar to what used to be the Southern States here in Maryland. It was destroyed by fire early in 1935. He had no insurance and had no means to support a big family. I, at that time, I was number six of seven children. More were born after we moved to Maryland. It was a struggle to try to find employment. He found out that there were jobs available in Maryland and he moved the family to Maryland in the summer of 1935. We lived in the Watervale area of Fallston. He had rented a two-story frame house that had no heat and no electricity.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH We lived there for a couple of years and then moved over to Old Jarrettsville Road on a very sharp curve just east of High Point Road. This was a unique house. I have memories of that house because it had a springhouse. Beside the house there was a small stream and there was a springhouse that was used for keeping foods cold—watermelon in the summer tasted mighty good after it had been cooling there! One of the things we had on the front porch which was typical back in those days was an ice chest. It was an oak box and it had brass hinges and a latch and it was a two-door system. One door you put in a block of ice and the other one you kept milk your food cold to preserve it. From there we moved to Plumtree Road and then to Coopstown.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH Then my parents built a home up closer to Forest Hill on Old Jarrettsville Road. My Dad was a master carpenter.
DW Oh.
DH He was not a farmer as you'd think of a typical farmer. He grew a large vegetable garden which was necessary for feeding a large family. He worked at several jobs in the county. One in particular that he had was back in the later '30s, early '40s, he was working at Edgewood Arsenal because the war in Europe was escalating—World War II was escalating. They were building facilities for soldiers and for the military personnel and my dad worked on a lot of the buildings there at Edgewood Arsenal. Many of them are still in use today.
DW Oh.
DH He also worked for Mr. Roy Bryson who had the contract working at the racetrack, Bel Air Racetrack. They built the horse barns, repaired the fences, whatever was necessary to keep the racetrack in good shape and up and running for the race meets.
DW Wow.
DH He was not a gambler, but one day, he and two or three other workers decided to put in fifty cents each to bet on a horse. It was a longshot.
DW [Laughs]
DH The longshot came in. It paid quite a bit of money. I think his share of the money was seven dollars and change. That bothered him so much, he could not wait for Sunday to come to go to church and put it in the collection plate. [Laughter] He was a very honest, straightforward man.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH If he told you something, you could depend on it. My mother never worked outside of the home. She was a wonderful housekeeper and mother. She kept a spotlessly clean house. She did a lot of canning and preserving of foods which was necessary to feed the family. Our job, as the girls, our job was to prepare the jars for sterilizing. We had to wash them and scrub them. We had to help in every way. Living in the country, we had to help with the household chores, the garden chores; we had to pull the weeds in the vegetable garden, hoe the weeds in the cornfields; feed the livestock. We had to make our own fun, we had to have our own entertainment because mother didn't drive and in those days they didn't have organized sports like they do today. Mother was also an expert seamstress. She made a lot of our clothing, even the boys. She would make their shirts and their knickers.
DW Right. Where did you get the ice to put in the icebox?
DH There was an iceman that came by periodically and then they bought— twenty-five cents for a chunk of ice to put in the icebox.
DW How long would that last?
DH In the summertime, it would not last very long at all. Maybe two, three days, max. Because the interior of the box was some sort of tin or that retained the cold for a while. But I think it was every three days that the man came.
DW Ok.
DH Another thing—we had a fish man. He used to go fishing down at Havre de Grace and he would come through every so often with his little black open bed small pickup truck filled with ice and fish that he had caught. So every now and then we would have baked fish for dinner.
DW [Chuckles] Where did you go to school?
DH I started to school in 1938 at Emmorton Elementary School which was a two-room school. Mrs. Reatha McComas taught the first through the third grades and Mrs. Clara Streett taught the fourth through the seventh grades.
DW Is that a Street with two t's or one?
DH Two T's.
DW Ok. That's very common in the county.
DH Yes, yes.
DW [Chuckles]
DH We walked to school. We lived on Plumtree Road and it was a mile from our house to the school. The only time we missed school was when we had the whooping cough and one time there was a tremendous ice storm and everything was covered with ice, even the weeds in the fields were bent down with ice. My father walked to school with us and we sat on the front steps of the school waiting but the teachers never showed up. So we waited about an hour and walked home because in those days there was no communication like we have today about school closings. There was nothing about snow or ice closures because the snow emergency plan didn't go into effect in Harford County until, I think, 1961. I attended that school into the fourth grade. Then we moved to Churchville area and I attended the Churchville Elementary School, the remainder of the fourth grade and graduated seventh grade.
DW That's the building that's still standing?
DH Yes. Part of the old structure is still visible from the back, from the play yard of the school. You can't tell it so much from the front. Mr. Thomas Hackett was the Principal. My parents had a farm there, midway between Churchville and a little community called Level. Then they bought a farm at Coopstown and then I went to Bel Air High School for one year and after that transferred to Jarrettsville High School.
DW Hmmm.
DH In those days, the school system only had eleven years requirement. I was in the 1949 graduating class from Jarrettsville. That was the last official graduating class under the eleven year system of education. In 1950, there was a small graduation for those who did not complete their eleven years for some various reasons.
DW That was optional then wasn't it? Eight through eleven was actually optional at that time or was it mandatory?
DH I don't know if it was optional or not but I thought it was required for graduation, eleven years was required in order to get the certificate for graduation.
DW They actually gave you a certificate for the seventh grade didn't they?
DH I also have the certificate from the seventh grade.
DW It was a pretty rigorous test for the seventh grade.
DH Yes, yes. Mr. C. Milton Wright was the head of the Board of Education.
DW Right.
DH It's interesting that of the schools that I attended, Emmorton School is still standing but no longer—I do not recall when they stopped having classes there, but they built a brand new school and, of course, things do change over the years. Churchville is still an elementary school but it only goes to the fifth grade. Then Jarrettsville was elementary through high school and it is now just an elementary school.
DW Hmm. I think there's only one corner of the original school that's still intact.
DH Yes. Yes, that's right.
DW That's the only thing that survived of the brick. Actually, the school you went to was the fifth school in Jarrettsville—two logs, two frame and now the second brick is there.
DH Mmm hmm.
DW You talked about your dad taking care of the buildings at the Bel Air racetrack, that was also like the place the school kids went for fairs and things like that, wasn't it?
DH Yes, it was. They used to have the county fair. In fact, I won ribbons there for some of my sewing ability, some of my—my mother as I mentioned before was an expert seamstress and she taught me sew at a very early age and I won prizes for some of my sundresses and aprons and things that I had made, way back then. [Chuckles]
DW [Chuckles] I'm going to pause here and do a quick check of equipment.
DH Am I doing ok?
DW Oh, you're doing wonderful! [Laughter] I love it when I don't get "yes" or "no". [Laughter]
DH Ok, all right. I can say, I get a little long winded so you'll have to move along.
DW No, no, no, you're doing fine. Ok, so, Bel Air Racetrack—were there races there all year long?
DH No, it was a summer meet. It was a half mile race track and they just had a summer meet but they had the races every year.
DW Only lasted a couple weeks or something?
DH Yes, that's correct.
DW Ok. Looks like you were active in St. Margaret's? on Hickory [Avenue]?
DH Yes. My husband was a member of St. Margaret's Church. We were married in the little historic white church in 1953. Our children were baptized there at that church.
DW Know any history of the church?
DH I'm sorry?
DW Any of the history of the church?
DH The history of the church—we celebrated the 100th anniversary in 2005. The Higinbothom family moved into Bel Air in 1920 and there have been Higinbothoms in St. Margaret's parish since 1920. My husband served on many committees in the church. I served on the planning the historical ceremony for the church. Three of my four children went to school there. I was very active in school activities and served as president of the Mother's Club which was the forerunner of the PTA. I helped with some of the grades, some of the teachers' assistant with some projects that they were working on. I worked with the Patriot Program, the fifth graders. There are probably other things that don't come to mind right off hand.
DW Did St. Margaret's come from St. Ignatius which would have been much older? Was that like a "spin-off"?
DH No, St. Ignatius was the oldest Catholic church between Baltimore and Philadelphia. I'm not sure how St. Margaret's got started but I think it was Father Frederick. Your original school for St Margaret's was, I believe, located in a house on Pennsylvania Avenue.
DW I had heard it was on the corner where the Parking Garage is.
DH Yes and I'm not sure of the exact location but then they built the school over on Hickory Avenue which was a very small school and then they added onto it and eventually built the larger building and both buildings are used for classes. The older building as well as the newer building and they now have a building for pre-K and Kindergarten which did not exist when I was in school. They had no pre-Ks or Kindergarten.
DW Do you know what the attendance is there, school attendance?
DH It has fluctuated over the years and I'm not sure what it would be now.
DW Ok. Well, you mentioned your husband. How did you meet him?
DH I was working, employed at The Aegis newspaper. My boss, Mr. John D. Worthington, Sr., introduced us. I was a bookkeeper at The Aegis and a proofreader and The Aegis came out on Thursday—weekly paper, on Thursday.
DW [Chuckles]
DH My husband came on Thursday after lunch to buy a newspaper before he went back to his law office and my boss introduced us. But it was not a "love at first sight". He had to work at it. [Laughter] But I could sit at my desk at The Aegis office which at that time was located on Courtland Street and Wall Street had not yet been demolished for the addition of the courthouse and I could look right straight from office window to the door to his law office. I could see when he was coming and going. [Laughter]
DW Worthington was, I guess, owner and chief editor…
DH He's the owner, owner and editor of the newspaper. In fact, where I live today is called Homestead Village and he lived in the big, stone house up behind the Bel Air Methodist Church and all of this property came from his farmland, from his farm.
DW That building later would have been Courtland Hardware, right?
DH No.
DW No? It's not on that corner?
DH No, it's not on that corner. It was between Bond Street and Main Street.
DW Oh. Ok, well I always had that wrong in my mind. [Laughter]
DH Well, Courtland Hardware was up on the corner of Main and Courtland which now, I think, is a brick building that houses a lot of the Department of Social Services offices.
DW Where did you say The Aegis was?
DH Courtland Street.
DW Courtland and…
DH Between—closer to Bond Street than Main Street.
DW Oh, ok. Holden Building was in the middle…
DH It was next door. It was very close to the Holden Building.
DW Ok. Ok, no wonder you had such a good view of the Courthouse. [Laughter]
DH I did. I really did.
DW Let's talk a little bit about your husband's career because he was certainly a well-known name in the county.
DH Yes.
DW How many years did he practice law before he became a judge?
DH Oh, my goodness, I would have to do the math! He was already a lawyer when I met him and that was in 1950. I think he had been practicing for three or four years. He went on the bench in 1974, and during his tenure as judge, he was chairperson of the courthouse construction, the building the new courthouse.
DW Do you remember any interesting cases that he ever had or was involved in? Either as a lawyer or as a judge?
DH There are probably very many but one that comes to mind. He was not judge at this particular time. He was practicing law. The H. Rapp Brown case, who was the militant whose case had been transferred from Eastern Shore to Harford County and Judge Harry E. Dyer was presiding over that case when these people were on the way to the courthouse to blow up the courthouse and to set H. Rapp Brown free. The bomb went off prematurely and exploded on Route 1 near Tollgate Road.
DW Right.
DH Took out what was called the Toll House at that time and I was trying to think of some of the cases that might be of interest. Maybe we'll move along and something will come to me in a minute or so.
DW Ok, that's fine. One of the other things that I saw on the write-up that was given to me was your memory of a John Wilkes Booth play at the Bel Air Courthouse?
DH Yes, yes.
DW What year was that?
DH I don't recall the year but we did put on a play at the courthouse and I got down on my hands and knees and looked at the big oval table that is in the courtroom and it has a date on it of 1791, so it is…the courthouse had burned years and years before and it was rebuilt and this table was salvaged from the first burning as I understand it. But, yes, we did do a play about John Wilkes Boothe.
DW And that was high school?
DH No, it was not. It was, if I recall, we did it as a fundraiser for the Inner Wheel, the ladies of the Rotary Club. We supported local charities and functions and we put on the play, sponsored it.
DW Oh, ok. When I read that I wasn't clear as to what organization-------------when that happened. I did see that you were active in the Inner Wheel, so the Rotary was for the males—
DH At that time, yes.
DW And the Inner Wheel was the—
DH The ladies of the men in Rotary, yes. It was a way of supporting our husbands in their, in any way that we could. It was a way of meeting other Rotarians' wives. It was a great social thing, as well locally, as I said before, we did support some charities.
DW When I looked information up, I see that it's called the International Inner Wheel now.
DH Yes, It is, yes.
DW More than one country.
DH It is no longer the ladies of Inner Wheel because of the ladies in the Rotary Club now. It's not all men. It's men and women and the Rotary Club in Bel Air is very active. It always has been.
DW Since you lived around so many different places in the county during your life here, you must have had a chance to get on and off the Ma and Pa a time or two.
DH Not really.
DW No!?
DH No. I do not ever recall riding the Ma & Pa train. A lot of people rode it into Baltimore to school and back again and rode it back and forth every day. We did not have that opportunity. I've seen it many times. And I've waited for it to cross North Main Street many times. I remember the Station House there in Bel Air.
DW It would have been right around where Corbin Fuel is today.
DH Partially. It crossed North Main Street out near The Mill.
DW Right. The Mill's on one side and Corbin Fuel's on the other, I believe.
DH I've walked the trail, the walking trail. I have walked that several times.
DW Ok. You've also helped get the Heart Association going, an organization in Harford County
DH This was many, many years ago. Dorothy Ward who was a schoolteacher and I had been, she had approached me about helping to get a Heart Association started in Harford County. What we did was not fundraising. If a doctor had a patient who was having a heart problem, Dorothy and I would go to that home and do an EKG, check the vitas and report back to the doctors. So from that, eventually a Heart Association did form in Harford County, but I don't know if we would be the instigators or not. We had several patients that we would go out into the rural areas to check up. It would save the doctor a trip and save the family from having to bring the patient into the doctor's office.
DW Hmm. And did you have nurse's training?
DH No, I never wanted to be a nurse but I have spent most of my adult life being a caregiver. I have worked as a volunteer for the Harford County Health Department. I worked with the flu shots, so if you ever got flu shot through the Harford County Health Department at one of their locations, I was probably there. They have changed their system. They no longer have the different locations like they used to. But, no, I'm not a nurse but I have learned a lot through experience—first of all, having four children and taking care of family members who had been in need of help and assistance. I also took care of my next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Seifert. I took care of him until he passed away. He had a short hospital visit before he passed away and then I took care of Mrs. Seifert until she could no longer live next door and she was placed in a nursing facility. Caregiving is something that takes a lot of patience and time. I never thought I could handle it but having four children and being on my own as far as taking care of them, I learned quite a bit. I still don't want to be a nurse. [Laughter]
DW So when you were a child where did your family do their shopping?
DH We lived out in the country and we came to Bel Air about once a month to buy supplies that we could not grow on the farm such flour, and whatever feed for the livestock we had to buy and groceries. There was an American Store, grocery store, on Main Street, North Main Street— I'm using Pennsylvania Avenue as the cut off between south and north and this was north of Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the right hand side of the road and I think later it became Beshore's Appliance Store.
DW Also sold musical instruments.
DH Yes and all kinds of stuff. [Laughter] All kinds of appliances.
DW That's great. I knew somebody that worked in that store and I've been trying to remember the name of that store for six months.
DH Beshore's. The children would sit in the car while mother and dad did the shopping and after they got the groceries or whatever they needed to buy, if somebody need shoes, then we'd get the shoes and then we would go to the movies, the movie theater. But that was just a once a month trip and we had to really earn the rite to go to the movies. We had to toe the mark. [Laughter] My father was a strict disciplinarian. [Laughter]
DW So that would have been the Argonne on Main Street?
DH Yes. I remember a lot of the stores on Main Street. At Pennsylvania Avenue there was Richardson's Drugstore.
DW Good sodas.
DH And the movie theater and Getz's had a gift shop which later Payson Getz owned and operated. I think it was his uncle and his dad who started the store. I'm not really one hundred per cent sure about that. Dean and Foster had a place which sold furniture and also he was the undertaker. He later gave up the furniture store and then built the funeral home out on West Broadway. There was a Bata Shoe Store, Hub which was a clothing store, Main Street Market, The Vaughn Hotel. Across the way on the corner of Main and Office Street, Clarks Stationery Store—this was a little bit later.
DW I remember that.
DH Getz's Haberdashery, the Getz's men's store sold men's clothing. His three sons were all three lawyers—Morton, Stanley and Allen. The National Store which was a ladies clothing store, then in '50s Charles Lutz built the building there, it's still called the Lutz Building and he sold appliances.
DW The Vaughn Hotel would have—most people would remember that later as Preston's.
DH Yes, Preston's was in the corner of Vaughn—and there was a bowling alley underneath there at one time.
DW Right, and the pool hall.
DH And the pool hall, yes, of course, all of that was destroyed in the fire of 1972. We could see the smoke from my kitchen window from that fire.
DW Mmm hmm.
DH It destroyed quite a bit. It went from the Vaughn Hotel down to Boyd & Fulford. It stopped at Boyd & Fulford because of the firewall. There had been a firewall. Boyd & Fulford has been there for I don't know when it was started but I do recall Doc Maisenhalder who was the owner and proprietor and in the '50s and '60s, it was quite a tradition in my family that after Sunday Mass my husband took the children to Boyd & Fulford's drugstore, set them up at the counter, and treated them all to a cherry coke. And he had a regular coke and Dr. Maisenhalder would give the children bubblegum. And my children today, grown adults, still remember going into Boyd & Fulford's for that Sunday treat. Then, of course, Gene [Eugene] Streett started there after he finished pharmacy school and Gene is now the owner and proprietor. There are a lot more buildings but right now those are the ones that come to mind and I have vivid memories about.
DW That's great. There was two or three names in there that I—Clark's, I had been in numerous times but I couldn't have told you the name of the store.
DH It was Clark's Stationery but I don't recall what was on that corner before he moved in because he was there in the early '50s and I don't recall when he opened the business there. But I do recall two banks, we had the Commercial & Savings Bank which was recently torn down. Mr. Cornelius Cronin was the president of the bank and on Office Street, the First National Bank and if I'm not mistaken, I think a Mr. ------------- Kisen was the president of that bank.
DW K-I-S-E-N?
DH It's funny spelling. [According to Ancestry.com there are various spellings of this name– Munnichuysen, Munnichaysen, Munnikhuysen]
DW OK. I remember the First National there.
DH As far as other stores, I recall my dad telling me that he met Mr. Maurice Klein when they lived in Fallston. He is the father of Ralph Klein. He had a general store in the Fallston area that sold horse harnesses, all sorts of pot-bellied stoves, and parts and just a general country store for items that were needed back then. He later moved to the corner in Forest Hill at the intersection of, [Jarrettsville Rd and Rock Spring Rd] there's a traffic signal now, and opened up a general store there. When the grocery store strike came along, when all the big chains went on strike which was, I believe, in the '60s but I'm not one hundred per cent sure on the date, they started selling groceries and from that little store in Forest Hill they have branched out to become Klein's ShopRite and I think they have eight or nine stores throughout the county and local area.
DW Big expansion.
DH Yes.
DW You were also active with the Department of Aging and made trips to Annapolis to work with the Legislature?
DH Yes, yes we did. I really enjoyed the work with the Department of Aging because I felt like that I was an advocate for the senior citizens who had no one to speak out for them. One day, one incident that I particularly remember, we were going to Annapolis to let the legislators know about the high cost of prescription drugs and the health care situation for the senior citizens. We all took a small medicine bottle with three or four pennies in it, and when we began our sessions, we shook these pennies to get the attention of the legislators and they sat up, they took notice, and they listened. But we had periodic sessions where we would meet with the legislators to inform them of the issues that were facing senior citizens. I thought that was very productive. Unfortunately, I don't recall every activity that we did but those were some of the highlights.
DW Mmm hmm. That's fine. Let's go back to the beginning a little bit.
DH Before you do that, may I also tell you that I worked as a volunteer? I was on the Department of Social Services. I was on their Advisory Board for seven years. That was quite interesting. One of the major functions of the Advisory Board was to approve the budget for the agency, quite a big responsibility. We got involved in the homeless. We as Board Members, we would take turns going to one of the homeless shelters and cooking a meal for the homeless. We did that a few times. But I enjoyed my work with the Department of Social Services. Quite intense. A lot of it confidential.
DW I have a family member that I take care of business and he's involved with that so I have interfaced with them, has Social Services changed a lot over the years?
DH I think it has. I've been out of it now for several years and of course, things do change and they change rather rapidly sometimes. I know that as I went off the Board, they were starting a system, a computer system where they could track their clients anywhere in the country. They had a database that they were working with. That's way out of my realm of expertise. [Laughter]
DW To kind of go back to the beginning of all this, why do you think your dad was successful in finding work in Harford County but not in Virginia. His carpentry skills should have been useful any place.
DH I don't believe at that time that he really had the carpentry skills. His brother, my uncle, had come to Maryland looking for work. Of course, all of this is after the Depression and things were slow to recover or to even get started, and my uncle came to Maryland and worked on the bridge across Conowingo Dam. [After the interview I realized that I was incorrect about where my uncle worked. He did not work on the dam and I do not know where he found employment.] He went back home to Virginia to move his family to Maryland because he told my dad there were jobs available up here.
DW Hmm.
DH So I'm not sure what he did—I was only three when we first came to Maryland—I'm not sure what he did, what his abilities were, but over the years he became a master carpenter. In fact, he worked for one of the builders here in Homestead Village before he retired. In fact, he worked on my house.
DW Oh!
DH So I really don't have any idea what he did prior to that because he had the feed store and chicken farm. When that was destroyed it left him without anything.
DW Your uncle must have been here pretty early because I think Conowingo was built between '27 and '29.
DH Mmm hmm. Well, he had come up and he worked the last stages of Conowingo.
DW Well, how about we talk a little bit about changes you've seen in the county from the'30s, '40s, and '50s to the 2000s? How about changes for the better?
DH We have a better library system. We have a lot more shopping opportunities. We have a lot more malls. Malls were non-existent back in the '30s and '40s and early '50s. The road system—that's where I can see a big change is in the road system because there used to be so many unpaved roads in the county and now a lot of them are paved—the super highways—the change on [Rt.] 24, the building of the new 24 and changing the name of the old 24 to 924; how it opened up the land for building. The housing developments are numerous throughout the entire county. My husband used to practice real estate law and on Sundays after dinner, he would put us in the car and we would go out driving around Harford County looking at the property that he had a settlement on. I recall one time going to the upper end of the county that we went off the main road, we went into a gravel road, a dirt road and then we went to—it was just a path. That road is all paved now but I cannot tell you the name of the road because in those days many of the roads didn't have names!
DW Right.
DH The schools; The number of schools in the county; The expansion of the schools; Building Harford Community College.
DW Do you remember when US 40 and then I-95 were put in?
DH I remember 95 but I don't recall too much about 40 because 40 was here long before 95. In the beginning when 95 opened, the traffic on 40 was nil and then it wasn't long until it started building up again. I think that's about all I can recall at the moment.
DW Ok.
DH I'll probably think of 110 things after this is over that I should have said.
DW That's very, very normal. Don't worry about that at all.
DH One of the places that we particularly enjoyed going to was the Rocks.
DW Hmm.
DH My husband's brother and family lived in Baltimore City and they had three children and they would come up in the summertime and I would take them up to the Rocks, my children and his sister-in-law and nieces and nephew. We would picnic and play in the body of water and walk up to the King and Queen Seat. That was one of the good places that they enjoyed visiting. Another thing, they all learned to ice skate over here on Bynum Park by the pond at Bynum park.
DW Yes.
DH They all learned to ice skate over there. [Laughter]
DW Did you actually go in Deer Creek or did you go in the 4-H swimming hole?
DG Deer Creek; Deer Creek, right along Rocks Road. Right along Rocks Road and they had their favorite stones. They had one that looked like Flipper. [Laughter] But it was fun times and now another thing that I particularly enjoy is the Promenade at Havre de Grace.
DW Hmm.
DH I love to go down there and walk. I go down early in the morning and walk and enjoy that tremendously.
DW It was nice that they replaced it after it was damaged.
DH Right and another thing that is good about the county is all of the organized sports for the children. In the late '50s early '60s, the only sport available was for the boys and that was baseball and then the Pop Warner Football League started and then soccer started and from there it has branched out.
DW Yea.
DH And the kids learned early that if they wanted to play sports when they got in school and high school, in particular, they had to start when they were young.
DW Right.
DH Churches. We went to whatever church was in our neighborhood. So I have been to just about every church and denomination in Harford County. [Laughter]
DW That was also very common, too.
DH Yes. Yes, yes. Mountain Christian Church. That's the first church I recall attending and we went to church in that stone church that is right on the road. Now there is a huge church campus.
DW Yes.
DH Huge church campus. A very active church.
DW The time that you lived at Emmorton, when I look at the old maps of that area, it was, of course, now it is considered a suburb of Bel Air, but back then it was certainly a whole community unto itself.
DH And it was very small. The community of Emmorton was centered near that church, near the Emmorton Elementary School.
DW Right.
DH There are a few houses still standing that were there along Old Emmorton Road and, I do recall there was a stone house that we used to—sometimes, if we had a few pennies in our pocket that we would stop there and there was an old maid that ran a store there. We were scared to go there because it was so dark but if we had a couple of pennies, we would go in and buy penny candy to munch on on our way home. But the road, of course, changed when they put in 924.
DW Correct. But I was surprised. If you look at some of the oldest maps, they had their own post office and general store and blacksmiths and that kind of thing. The other thing that surprised me was Old Emmorton Road actually, even before the new 924 was put in was actually Old Emmorton Road like in the late '30s early '40s.
DH Right, mmm hmm. Mmm hmmm.
DW So, I found that surprising when I looked at the maps—
DH Mmm hmm.
DW Of the area. It wasn't strictly when 924 went in; it was much earlier than that.
DH Mmm hmm.
DW We've been going almost an hour.
DH Have we?
DW Yes. [Chuckles] So is there anything else that you would like to talk about?
DH Not that I can think of at the moment. Harford County has been a great place to live. It was a wonderful place to raise my children. It was a great place to for my husband's law practice. Three of my four children still live in Harford County and work in Harford County. One works for the Upper Chesapeake Health System; one has his own business, Decisive Data Services which is computer services for large businesses and, my older son is with the Dixie Construction Company.
DW Hmm.
DH My daughter is a retired school teacher and she is now living Hancock, MD. I've enjoyed volunteering. I just wish I could do a lot more volunteer work but maybe that will come later. Do you have any other questions for me?
DW You started off with some great information about how the family life was at the beginning so you covered a lot of the stuff that I would normally have ask you about. It was very good.
DH There were all together eleven children.
DW Wow.
DH Two died in infancy—one was two years old and the other was just a few weeks old. They died within a few days of each other. They had spinal meningitis. I had an older brother who, during World War II, his ship was bombed and he was lost on ship during World War II. The rest of us reached adulthood. I marvel now at how my parents were able to raise such a big family. We always had plenty of food to eat. We had clothing, much of it was hand-me-downs or handmade. As I mentioned before, mother was an expert seamstress and when we would have to buy flour or feed, she would tell my father to look for certain flour and feed sacks because she knew that if she four alike, she could make a dress. If she had one, she could make an apron. If she had two, she could make a dress for one of the girls. So we wore flour and feed sack clothing but it was beautiful, it was homemade, it was new and it was always clean. My granddaughter asked me one time, "Grand mom, what modern invention means the most to you?" and without hesitation I said, "Washer and Dryer."
DW [Chuckles]
DH Because the way we had to do laundry was very rugged and rough and wore the skin off your bony little fingers. I remember when my mom got her first Maytag Washer. It was electric and it had a wringer. That washing machine is still around today. It was Maytag. My brother took the wringer off, he still has it and sometimes when he entertains he puts ice in it and puts his soda and beer in there. He says it sure does keep it cold. [Laughter]
DW Well, that's nice that things from your parents have survived.
DH Yes. Yes, yes.
DW Too much of the stuff gets thrown away today.
DH Yes, that's true. That's true. I remember the shoe last that was this iron thing that looked like the bottom of a shoe turned upside down. Daddy would put the shoes on this last and would put on a new heel if it needed it or a half sole if it needed it. Somebody in the family could wear the shoe. But we all grew up to be useful human beings.
DW I will say thank you very much. I've enjoyed my time with you.
[Additional Notes – Original Interview 17 January 2013]
It has been an honor and a privilege to remember life and times of years gone by in Harford County as seen through my eyes and experience. I appreciate this special honor of being proclaimed a Harford County Living Treasure.
I want to give additional information to some of the questions I was asked during the interview.
You asked about my husband, Edward D. Higinbothom and, in particular, about his career as a lawyer as well as memorable cases he presided over as Judge. In addition to what I have already mentioned, he was very well known and highly respected in the county and state. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945. After discharge he attended law school at night. During the day he worked for Mr. John A. Robinson at the Bel Air Times newspaper. He began his practice about 1948. The mainstay of his law practice was Real Estate, Deeds, Wills, Mortgages, Estate work and preparing tax returns. He represented some financial institutions and was active in the Harford County and State Bar Associations. In 1974, he was sworn in as a Harford County Circuit Court Judge. During his tenure on the bench, he heard a variety of cases ranging from domestic to civil to criminal. He enjoyed a reputation for being a gentle man, intelligent, understanding, considerate and fair. After retirement in 1984, he continued to work as a Judge by special assignment. These assignments were in Howard, Frederick, Baltimore Counties and Baltimore City. He was honored to sit for one case on the Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis. He heard many interesting cases but there are two that stand out in my mind. One of particular interest was a jury case involving a labor union dispute. The first day of trial he arrived at the courthouse with a very uneasy feeling about the safety of the people and possible tension involved in this case. Acting on that strong feeling, he asked his court bailiff and the Deputy Sheriff (one was always on duty in the court room) to search everyone who entered the room. He was not surprised to find that guns were found and confiscated. Another time, he had a case of teen age girls fighting. In the court room during the hearing their mothers were very hostile and disrespectful. When the case was over, he again experienced that feeling of unease. He requested his bailiff (a former federal marshal) to escort the ladies safely from the courthouse. In the stair well one of the women suddenly pulled out a knife and was approaching the other women. The bailiff noticed and quickly subdued her and removed the knife from her hand before any harm could be done. It was cases like these that eventually led to the courthouse security system.
More stores I remember during the 40's and 50's. On Main Street: The National Store – Ladies clothing and accessories Walkers – A clothing and variety store owned by Mr. Kaplan The Kiddie Shop – Baby and Children's clothing. Other buildings that I recall are the sheriff's home on Main Street with the jail in the back of the dwelling and Dr. Palmer's home and office on the south corner of Main and Churchville Road. There were many more stores and buildings that are memorable such as Motor Sales on Bond Street, now the location of Courtland Hardware. Miss Jo Moore's boarding house on North Main Street and Jackson's Radio and Television Store on the corner of Main and Lee Streets, owned by Mr. Ores Jackson. The courthouse located on Main Street between Office and Courtland Streets did not extend all the way to Bond Street as it does today. Wall Street stretched between the back of the courthouse and the Regal Hotel. The county liquor dispensary, the only place one could purchase alcohol, was located on the corner of Courtland and Wall Streets. Dr. Main E. Little, a dentist, had an office on Wall Street as did a lawyer and an insurance company. All of this changed when it was necessary to enlarge the courthouse. Wall Street was closed and buildings were torn down to construct a much needed addition. Upon completion the courthouse would extend from Main Street to Bond Street. Many changes took place in Bel Air after the one way north on Main Street and the one way south on Bond Street was implemented. The opening of the Harford Mall had a huge impact on businesses. Some closed or moved to other locations. The Mall had a theatre and soon the one on Main Street closed.
During the interview I was asked about the history of St. Margaret Church. I do not think it was a spin-off from St. Ignatius Church. In retrospect, I offer the following information. In 1900 Fr. Alphonse Frederick purchased three acres of land in Bel Air with money he inherited from his mother. Most of the work on the corner stone and the construction of the church was done by volunteers. The church was named in honor of Fr. Frederick's mother whose patron saint was St. Margaret. The first Mass was celebrated in October, 1905. In April 1911, the Sisters of Notre Dame came to Bel Air to establish a school. Classes were held in a building donated by Octavius Norris. It was the first Catholic School in Harford County. Enrollment increased over the years and the school now educates pre-school, kindergarten, first to fifth grades as well as middle school students. Because of increased population and membership in 1969, a new church was dedicated and the original church was remodeled to serve as a library and an adult education center. In 1995 ground was broken to build a mission outside of Bel Air on Churchville Road. It was given the name St. Mary Magdalen and was dedicated in 1997. Sometime later, the middle school was built to educate the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. In 2005 St. Margaret Church celebrated its 100th anniversary.
I was asked about the John Wilkes Booth play. The play took place in November 1975 in the ceremonial courtroom at the courthouse in Bel Air. It was a bi-centennial fundraising event planned and sponsored by the Inner Wheel of Bel Air Rotary Club. The play was titled "Booth in Bel Air" and was performed by students from the John Carroll High School. The program cover was a reproduced replica of a playbill used when Booth played Brutus in 1873. I was chairperson with Mrs. Eugene Streett acting as co-chair and we were assisted by Mrs. Ralph Morgan. The proceeds from the play were used to restore the portraits that hang in the courthouse.